When you step up from managing individual contributors to managing managers, everything you thought you knew about leadership gets turned upside down. I was recently reminded of this whilst reflecting on one of the most profound leadership insights I’ve ever encountered, and it came from an unexpected source: the animation studios of Hollywood.
When Ed Catmull left his successful tenure at Pixar to become president of Disney Animation Studios in 2006, he walked into what most would consider a failing management structure. Disney Animation had been struggling for years, with directors clashing, producers overwhelmed, and department heads working in silos. The conventional wisdom would have been to replace the management team and bring in fresh leadership, shake up the hierarchy, start again.
But Catmull did something revolutionary instead. He changed how the managers worked together.
The Google Principle for Management Teams
What Catmull understood, and what Google’s research has consistently proven, is a fundamental truth about management performance that most senior leaders get backwards:
“If you give an average management team a brilliant strategy, they’ll find a way to wreck it. But if you give a brilliant management team an average strategy, they’ll find a way to make it work.”
The difference lies in the system that governs how they collaborate, not the managers themselves.
At Disney, Catmull didn’t replace the directors, producers, or department heads. Instead, he imported Pixar’s collaborative management model called their “Braintrust” system, where managers could give honest feedback across departments without territorial battles, where psychological safety extended to admitting when projects were struggling, and where the focus was on making the film better, not protecting departmental budgets.
The same managers who had been “failing” suddenly started creating magic again. Tangled, Frozen, Moana. These weren’t made by different management teams. They were made by the same managers working in a different system.
The Management Layer Challenge
What most senior leaders miss when stepping into the “manager of managers” role where your management team is struggling, is that your first instinct is probably wrong.
You’re looking at the individual managers. Who’s not developing their people, who’s missing targets, who needs performance management. But the real question is: what’s the system doing to these managers?
I’ve seen this pattern repeatedly in my work with senior leadership teams. The moment we shift from “fixing managers” to “fixing how managers work together,” everything changes. That management team I worked with recently, (you might recall the one where every manager was drowning in their own silo) they weren’t incompetent people. They were capable managers trapped in a broken management system filled with friction.
When we stopped asking “Which manager isn’t performing?” and started asking “What’s preventing our managers from succeeding together?”, the transformation was immediate. They went from competing department heads to a collaborative leadership team.
The Three Pillars of JBL Management Systems
Based on what Catmull implemented at Disney and what I’ve observed in high-performing management layers, there are three critical elements that separate brilliant management teams from struggling ones:
1. Trust: Creating Psychological Safety Across Departments
Managers need to know they can be vulnerable about their challenges without career consequences. At Disney, this meant directors could admit when storylines weren’t working, and producers could flag budget concerns without blame. Trust enables managers to ask for help instead of hiding problems until they become crises.
2. Connection: Building Genuine Relationships Beyond Hierarchy
The magic happens when managers see each other as allies, not competitors. Catmull created informal spaces where managers could connect as humans, not just functional heads. These relationships become the foundation for collaboration when pressure mounts and silos naturally want to emerge.
3. Purpose: Aligning Around Shared Outcomes
Every manager understood they were making films, not just running departments. This shared purpose meant animation managers cared about story quality, and story managers understood production constraints. When managers share a common purpose beyond their functional area, they naturally start solving problems together.
The Systems Thinking Revolution
This requires a fundamental shift in how you think about your role as a manager of managers. You become the systems architect, creating conditions where capable managers can lead effectively together.
Your job involves making the management layer work as a cohesive system that amplifies everyone’s effectiveness, not making each manager better at managing their team in isolation.
Practical Steps for the New Senior Leader
Start with Management Team Dynamics, Not Individual Performance
Before you assess any individual manager, assess how they work together. Are they sharing information? Supporting each other’s initiatives? Or are they protecting their territories?
Create Cross-Functional Success Metrics
Measure managers not just on their departmental outcomes, but on how well they enable other departments to succeed. This single change transforms behaviour overnight.
Build Management Team Rituals
Just as Catmull created the Braintrust for creative collaboration, create regular forums where managers can problem-solve together without hierarchy getting in the way.
Focus on Performance Friction in the System, Not People Problems
When performance issues arise, ask: “What friction in our system is creating this outcome?” Most managers are genuinely trying their hardest to succeed. Most likely they’re just weighed down by conflicting priorities, unclear interfaces between departments, redundant processes, or resource bottlenecks that create drag on their effectiveness.
The next time your management team is struggling, resist the urge to focus on individual manager development. Instead, ask yourself: What would happen if I assumed these are exactly the right managers, and I just need to change how they work together as a management system?
The answer might surprise you.
Sometimes the problem lies in the management system you’re working within, not your managers themselves.
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